Innistrad

Innistrad is the first set in the Innistrad block, and will be released during late 2011/2012. It is the fifty-seventh expansion for Magic. Prerelease Events will take place September 24-25, 2011 and Launch Parties will take place September 30-October 3, 2011. The Magic Online release date will be October 17, 2011 and the Game Day will be on October 29-30, 2011.

Set details

Innistrad has a classical horror theme and makes use of horror tropes. It is the first set to thematically take place on the plane of Innistrad. The set features graveyard and tribal mechanics, with the five main tribes each being split over an allied color pair. Spirits in and , Zombies in and , Vampires in and , Werewolves in and , and Humans primarily in and . In each of these pairs, the second color is considered the primary. There are also slight thematic differences between the tribes depending on the color, such as zombies being abominations of science in the vein of Frankenstein's Monster, while Zombies are shambling corpses reanimated by magical spells.

The set is considered a large set with 264 cards, which is 15 more cards than any large expansion in recent history had.

Flavor

“

Horror Lurks Within

”

Mechanics

Innistrad is graveyard based and features the return of flashback which originated in Odyssey and was reprinted during Time Spiral block.

The set also features a transformation mechanic, changing creatures into different creatures and back, including cardfaces for either creature. The mechanic introduces new symbols representing a sun and a moon which appear to the left of a card name similar to a the tombstone marking graveyard based mechanics in Odyssey block.

Liliana Vess returns as a new card named Liliana of the Veil, the first Planeswalker card with five abilities.

Notable Cards/Firsts in Magic

Innistrad will be the first set to include a Planeswalker that has five loyalty abilities. This planeswalker is the second to have more than three loyalty abilities, the first being Jace, the Mindsculptor. Innistrad is confirmed to have two Planeswalker cards: a new Garruk and Liliana, it is unknown whether Garruk or Liliana card will be the one with five loyalty abilites. This information was revealed on Mark Rosewater's twitter account.

External links

• "Magic Arcana" (Monday, March 14, 2011). "Announcing Innistrad". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.